One Endless Hour

13

"D'you think she's sleepin' at a girl friend's?" Dahl muttered.

"More likely a boyfriend's," I replied, thinking of the Schemer's report on the elder Barton daughter. "Let's make sure of the Bartons."

Ellen Barton's disappearance from her room was just one more thing gone wrong in a night notably full of same. We backed out of her bedroom and moved down the hall. The door to the master bedroom was closed, too. I could hear snoring.

There was no need for finesse now. There was no one left to be wakened by a scream. I opened the bedroom door and walked in. Behind me, Dahl flicked on the light switch. Dahl and I were standing on either side of the bed by the time Thomas Barton struggled from the depths of sleep to a sitting position. Thelma Barton snored on.

The bank manager blinked at Dahl's mask. "What- what-" he stammered.

"Quiet," Dahl ordered. His eyes on the sleeping Thelma Barton, he picked up the husband's pillow.

At the sound of Dahl's voice, the snoring stopped. Thelma Barton spoke with her eyes closed. "Put out that light, Tom," she said. "You shouldn't have had that last bottle of beer."

"Dear," her husband began.

I don't know what it was she thought she heard in his voice, but her eyes snapped open. I could see the scream starting from her toes. Dahl saw it, too. He dropped the pillow onto her face. The scream dissipated itself in a hissing sound. Dahl held the pillow in place till she stopped fighting it. "Quiet," he warned again, and removed the pillow.

Thelma Barton sat up. She was the picture of indignation. Her hair was in curlers and her nightgown had slipped off one shoulder, disclosing an undersized breast. "You two will go to the electric chair for this," she proclaimed, jerking the gown back into place. She had a jaw-line like a grenadier guard. "Where are my children?" she demanded, glaring at Dahl.

"In their beds," Dahl replied. I could tell from his voice he was enjoying himself. "Except Ellen."

"Except Ellen?" Mrs. Barton's voice rose an octave. "What do you mean 'except Ellen'?"

"Her bed hasn't been slept in."

"Hasn't been-" Thelma Barton's bare feet hit the floor with a splat. Beneath her gown, her long, thin legs scissored toward the doorway. Dahl followed her. I could sense his smirk at the woman's semitransparent dishabille.

When they disappeared down the hallway, I looked at the man in the bed. "We're going to the bank shortly," I said.

"The bank!" he exclaimed, his eyes bulging. "I thought-"

"It's not a house burglary."

"But you can't possibly hope to accomplish-"

I was listening to Thelma Barton's audible return from her daughter's room. "Imagine!" she was saying as she burst into the master bedroom. "That vixen has gone out over the roof again! After all our lectures, Tom! I'll-"

"Get dressed, Mrs. Barton," I said.

"Dressed? What for?"

"We're all going to the Mace home."

She got the picture. Her tone lost some of its incisive-ness. "What about Margie and Tommy?"

"They'll come when Tommy delivers his paper route."

"How did you know-"

"Evidently they have it all planned, dear," Thomas Barton said quietly. "For the children's sake, we must do what they say." He slid out of bed. He was a short, paunchy man. Both Bartons began to dress.

I moved over to Dahl, who was lounging in the doorway. "Sure wish I'd brought my camera inside with me," he said wistfully. He was eyeing Thelma Barton's struggle to dress under cover of her nightgown.

"You stay here and wait for Ellen," I said to Dahl in an undertone. "I'll take this pair to the Mace's, then come back and go with the kids on the boy's paper route when it's time. Margie's presence should assure Tommy's cooperation. When I'm ready to take them to the other house, hopefully you'll have corralled Ellen and added her to the collection. Give me your car keys and"-mentally I counted heads-"five pairs of your tie-cords."

Dahl handed them over. Five minutes later I ushered Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Barton out the back door of their home. I had no fear of antics on their part. They knew that Dahl was remaining with the children.

I drove Dahl's rental to the Mace house and delivered the Bartons to Preacher Harris in the basement. I had time only for a glimpse of the startled looks on four faces as the Maces and the Bartons met under other-than-ordinary circumstances. Rachel was as beamingly nude as before although there was a shredded sheet beside her on the mattress floor. "I tried to cover her up but she tears everything," Harris explained.

"So I see." I handed him the tie-cords. "You've got enough here now so they might be tempted to jump you. Tie them up. The girl first." I explained the hangup with Ellen and the fact that Dahl was waiting for her. "I'll be back with the kids," I concluded.

I left the house and started down the driveway to the car. A police cruiser was moving slowly through the block, one of the occasional "irregulars" that the Schemer had warned the police put on to avoid being typed by people like us. I stopped in the shadows. The cruiser's spotlight flicked on and lingered on the rental license plate, but the cruiser kept on going.

The danger would come on the cruiser's next swing through the area, if there was a next swing. Nine nights out of ten all the cops would have been back at the station, drinking coffee and writing up their reports, but this was the tenth night. One more look at those rental plates and the cop in the cruiser was liable to stop and try to find out the reason for its presence.

I went back into the house and called down to Harris in the basement. He came halfway up the stairs, looking angry. "I'm going to gag that goddam Barton woman," he declared.

"What's the matter?"

"She's getting everyone upset, running her mouth about the criminal irresponsibility involved in keeping the idiot girl a prisoner all these years. Mrs. Mace is almost in tears, and the two men are sitting there trying not to listen. We don't want Mace upset before he gets to the bank, do we?"

"Suit yourself about the gag, but find out from Mace where he keeps his car keys." I explained about the police cruiser. "I'm going to drive the Mace car and put the rental job in his driveway."

"Good deal." Harris went down the steps. "They're in a mixing bowl inside the first wall cabinet as you come in the back door," he called up to me in a moment.

"Right." I closed the basement door. I found the car keys and went outside again. I switched cars, although the sound of the Mace Rambler station wagon's engine made me uneasy. The car was unlikely to be dependable for anything but short hauls.

Dahl was waiting for me at the head of the stairs when I climbed to the second floor of the Barton home. He was grinning widely. "Ellen came in the window ten minutes ago," he said. "And would you believe she's stoned on Mary Jane? How do you like these small-town kids?"

"Let's take a look at her," I said.

Dahl led the way to her bedroom. "She'd never have made it if a couple of her pals hadn't boosted her up onto the porch roof. You never heard such giggling," he said. He turned on a bedside lamp. A tall, black-haired, beautiful girl was sprawled on her side in the bed, clad only in a pair of transparent panties. She was breathing raggedly but deeply. I could detect the sweetish odor of marijuana. A trail of feminine clothing extended from the open window to the bed. "She shed her clothes like they were on fire," Dahl continued. "How we gonna move her to the other house?"

"Mummified in a blanket, if we have to."

Dahl was staring down at the girl on the bed. "Great pair of teats. Nothin' wrong with the ass, either, even if she has been workin' it overtime tonight."

"Working it overtime?"

He smiled knowingly. "You don't have the eye for these things that I have, cousin. That isn't goose grease smeared all over her pussy hair."

I turned away from the bed. "Tie her up in case she comes around. Then we'll wait downstairs for Tommy's papers."

Dahl rejoined me in a few moments in the downstairs sitting room. "I just checked the younger kids," he said. "They're okay. The Little girl is mad, though. When I took her gag off for a second, she told me I was a bad man." Dahl chuckled.

We sat in darkness, waiting. I was trying to think of so many things at once that my nerves were fluttering. Had we overlooked anything? What exactly remained to be done, and in what order? I made mental lists, adding and subtracting.

A whistling noise brought me halfway up out of my chair. I stared through the window at the darkened porch. The noise was repeated, and I realized that it was behind me. The whistle ended in a snort. Dahl had fallen asleep and was snoring. I reached out a foot and kicked him in the ankle. "What the hell, Dahl! Do your sleeping later!"

"Restin' my eyes," he grunted. "The papers here?"

"Not yet. Stay awake and listen for them. I'm going upstairs and get the kids ready."

I climbed the staircase and went into Tommy's darkened room. I sat down on the edge of the bed beside him before speaking. "You and Margie and I are going to deliver your papers this morning, Tommy," I said. "I know the number of your deliveries and where you make them. If you're tempted to give an alarm, Margie will still be in the car with me. Do you understand?" He nodded, and I removed his gag and his wrist and ankle cords. "Get dressed," I told him.

I went across the hall to Margie's bedroom. Despite her uncomfortable tied-up position, she had fallen asleep. The healthy nerves of children. "You and I are going with Tommy when he delivers his papers, Margie," I said to her when I shook her awake. "If you try to give an alarm, it won't go well with Tommy." I removed her bonds. "Now get dressed."

I was on my way across the hall again when Dahl's whistle floated up the front stairs. "The papers just came," he informed me when I went to the head of the stairs.

"We'll be right down."

I went back into Margie's room. She was dressed in blouse and shorts, and her face was damp from a quick washing. I motioned toward her socks and sneakers on the floor. "Bring those along and we'll go to Tommy's room."

She led the way, her pigtails bouncing on her slender shoulders. There was a light on in Tommy's room. The boy was seated on the edge of his bed, dressed. I was getting my first good look at him. He was a handsome kid with wavy dark hair and a clear complexion but with a sullen expression. He grinned at his sister but said nothing.

I moved to turn out the light. "Better leave it on," he said casually. "People are used to seein' lights upstairs here at this time of the morning." He had a point. I removed my hand from the switch. "Where's Ellen?" he continued.

"In her room."

"Flaked out as usual?"

I glanced at Margie, who had seated herself on the bed and was drawing on socks and sneakers. "She's asleep."

"Asleep!" he said derisively. "Stupid broad!"

I studied him. "You feel that way about Margie, too?"

"Not yet." He grinned. "She still thinks it's to sit on. She'll be givin' it away one of these days, though."

"I do too know what it's for!" Margie said indignantly.

"That Ellen, though," Tommy went on. He shook his head. "A commercial setup I could at least understand. She-"

"That's enough of that," I cut him off, looking at the pigtailed Margie.

"Oh, I know all about Ellen!" the younger girl said scornfully. "She hasn't got brains enough to sell it."

Eleven years old, I thought to myself. Eleven years old.

"Stop showing off, Marge," Tommy frowned. He was looking at me. "This is about the bank, isn't it?"

I saw no point in lying. "Yes."

"I hope you take 'em for plenty," he said. His tone was serious. "I hope you shake up the whole crummy town."

"Why?"

"Because you'd be hittin' 'em where it hurts. All the parents I know spend their time tryin' to figure out how to swindle someone. At least you've got the guts to go take it."

I remembered something. "How many mornings a week do you take a violin lesson?" I asked the girl.

"Only on Mondays."

"You really cased this job, huh?" Tommy said. He was looking at me with respect. "If I was a couple years older, I'd go with you." He scuffed at the carpeting with a sneakered foot. "I'm at a hell of an age," he concluded gloomily.

"You certainly are," Margie said smugly. "Standing in front of your mirror nights and admiring-"

He reached out and slapped her. She jumped up from the bed and kicked him in the shins. I grabbed a shoulder of each and pulled them apart. This was a demonstration of the familial love I'd been depending upon to make the pair solicitous of each other's welfare? I felt gloomy myself.

I marched them down the stairs. Margie slid behind me as Dahl approached us. Evidently his size impressed her, if anything impressed her generation. I took the wrapped and tied bundle of papers that Dahl handed me, then herded my charges out the front door and onto the porch.

"Hey, that's of Mace's car!" Tommy exclaimed at first glimpse of the Rambler across the street. "Is that where the folks are?" He followed up that question immediately with another. "Can I drive the car?"

"You can deliver the papers," I told him. The sky was still dark but beginning to lighten. "You have twenty minutes."

"I don't like the Maces," Margie announced. "They don't give parties."

Once under way, the paper delivery went swimmingly. Tommy folded papers while Margie gave me driving directions in a superior tone of voice. She knew the route as well as her brother did. At each stop he opened the door on the passenger's side and with a flick of his wrist scaled folded papers toward doorways. His percentage of hits was high.

There was only one untoward incident during the short run, but it was a heart stopper. In the middle of the second block of deliveries, I saw the same police cruiser heading toward us. Tommy was out of the car, firing a paper up onto a second-floor balcony. I placed a hand on Margie's arm. The cruiser stopped opposite us. Tommy turned in its direction and sailed the folded paper in his hand across the street and through the cruiser's open window. The cruiser blinked its lights and moved away. I breathed again. "Stupid cops," Tommy said contemptuously when he returned to the car for another paper. "They graft a free one from me every morning that they're out."

"Stupid cops," Margie echoed.

We completed the route and returned to the Barton home. Dahl was waiting inside the front door when I brought the kids in. "Get Ellen," I told him. "We're ready to go."

He went upstairs. When he came down, he was half leading, half carrying the good-looking girl, whom he had swathed in a blanket. She looked the gathering over fuzzily. The pupils of her eyes were pinpoints, but I judged that the depth of her involvement was lessening. "How's the easiest lay in town this morning?" Tommy inquired with brotherly affection.

"Shut up, you little wart." The girl's voice was blurry but functional. "What's-you're not cops. What's this all about?"

"Shut up yourself and walk," Dahl ordered.

She tried to kick him. His return kick was more accurate. I broke that one up and we went out to the Rambler. I drove. Ellen had drifted off into the land of hashish dreams again. When we reached the Mace house, Dahl carried her inside. Harris heard us coming and met us at the top of the basement steps. He and Dahl muscled the tall girl's dead weight downstairs.

The younger kids blinked at the transition from shadowy darkness outside to the stockade's bright illumination. Tommy's fascinated gaze fastened upon the slavering nude Rachel, who was chewing at the bonds on her wrists. Margie favored her brother with a superior sisterly smile.

Harris had gagged Thelma Barton. Dahl dumped Ellen to the floor where she sprawled three-quarters out of the blanket, then marched over in front of Ellen's mother. "What the hell kind of a parent are you?" Dahl demanded. "Don't you know where your kids are nights? Don't you care?"

Thelma Barton's features turned purple from the intensity of the abortive effort she made to reply. Dahl turned away. Harris drew me to one side. "Mrs. Mace wants to talk to you privately," he said. "She says it's important."

"Bring her outside, then. And get the tie-cords off Barton and Mace and onto the kids."

I went out into the basement proper. Harris led out Shirley Mace and then went back inside. The woman wasted no words. "There's a burglar alarm at the bank in the writing desk just inside the side door," she said. "You'll have to keep everyone away from it."

I couldn't help thinking that never in my life had I had more cooperation from such unlikely sources. First the bank manager's kids, now the assistant bank manager's wife. "You have a reason for telling me this, of course."

Her eyes met mine levelly. "I do. You're a ruthless man. I want you to kill Rachel before you leave. You can make it look like an accident."

"Well, now-"

"You'll be doing everyone concerned a favor," she insisted. Her tone turned acid. "I've spent twenty-two years in slavery because of George's truckling to his conscience. I don't propose to do it any longer. I've given you information which might easily make the difference in your getting away or not. You owe me a favor."

"We'll see," I said in the manner of a parent speaking to a petulant child, avoiding the outright "no" because of fear of the resultant emotional explosion. "Get back inside." She hesitated as if there were something more she was about to say, then led the way.

Barton and Mace were on their feet, rubbing their wrists. Everyone else except Shirley Mace was on the mattress floor, bound wrist and ankle. Harris speedily added her to the lineup. Ellen had thrown off her blanket and was staring defiantly at her family. Sometime since I had seen her on the bed in her room, either she or Dahl had removed her panties. The girl was as naked as Rachel.

"More bare pelt on the loose around here tonight," Dahl commented, seeing my expression. I kept a grip on myself. This was no time for a discourse on adult juvenile delinquency. For an instant I debated the wisdom of leaving Dahl with the group. I had committed myself to Harris, though. The gambler would be disturbed by a last-minute reversal of roles. "Harris and I are leaving now with these two," I told Dahl, nodding at the men. "Hold the lid on here till we get back. We'll take Mace's Rambler and leave your rental job in the driveway. If we're not back by nine twenty, go for yourself."

"I read you loud an' clear, cousin," he declared.

We climbed the basement steps with me in the lead, Barton and Mace in the middle, and Harris bringing up the rear. "Do you have your key to the bank's side entrance?" I asked Mace.

"It's on the Rambler key ring," he answered.

"Make sure of it," Harris warned. "You wouldn't like what happens to the people downstairs if it isn't."

Neither Mace nor Barton said anything. I wasn't sure that they caught the bloodthirsty reference to the hostages. We went out to the street. It was getting light. I put the two men in the back after Mace made sure that the bank key was on the key ring. Harris sat in front, watching them, although I think both he and I were convinced by that time there was no fight in either.

"I did the right thing!" George Mace burst out as I pulled away from the house. "She was mine! She is mine! She's my responsibility! How can your wife say we should have put her in a home, Tom!"

Barton said nothing. He looked like a man who had his own troubles. I drove through the quiet streets to the downtown area and parked Mace's car in its usual slot on the bank parking lot.

"We know there's no burglar alarm on the side door because the cleaning people have to get in at odd hours," Harris told Barton and Mace. "But the first man who makes an unexplained move inside has had it."

It was still dark enough so that I doubted anyone on the street could see us as we approached the bank. I handed Mace the Rambler key ring and motioned to him to open the bank door. Harris had his hand inside his jacket on the butt of his gun.

Mace unlocked the door. We all filed inside, our footsteps echoing cavernously in the stillness. I watched closely, but neither man made a move toward the alarm switch in the desk just inside the entrance about which Shirley Mace had warned me. "Take them into their offices and tie them up again," I said to Harris. "Each in his own office."

When he led them away, I stationed myself where I could watch the parking lot and the approach to the side door. Nothing moved in the steadily increasing light. "There's a coffee percolator all loaded and ready to go in Barton's secretary's office," Harris reported when he returned. "Should I make coffee?"

"If you like. Don't forget the sign for the front door."

"I'll get it up in time." Harris glanced at his watch. "I wish we didn't have this long a wait."

I wished it, too, but there was nothing we could do about it. I explained to Harris the necessity for keeping incoming bank personnel away from the desk near the entrance. I didn't tell him how I knew about the alarm. We checked the space available, and decided to place the bank employees in a lounge just off the rest rooms as fast as they appeared for work. The lounge had only one entrance and a door that could be locked from the outside.

Then there was nothing to do but wait.

We divided up into thirty-minute shifts the task of keeping an eye on the side entrance approach to prevent surprise. During my off periods I sat in one of the smaller offices. The sight of a roll of Scotch tape on the desk reminded me of something I had intended to do previously.

I rummaged around in the desk until I found an empty box of medium-stiff cardboard of the type in which new checkbooks are mailed out, and a sheet of wrapping paper. I folded the paper several times and slipped it into my jacket pocket. In that desk and the one in the adjoining office I found address labels, a pen that wrote with India ink, loose stamps, and the roll of tape. I tore the top label from the pad and printed an address on it: DR. SHER AFZUL, STATE HOSPITAL, RAIFORD, FLORIDA. In one corner I added FIRST CLASS MAIL. I put label, stamps, and tape in the box, then put the box in my jacket pocket along with the wrapping paper.

I settled down to wait again.

At eight thirty A.M. I released Barton from the chair into which he was tied and took him into the lobby. Using Harris's dog chain, I fastened Barton by one ankle to the leg of a heavy customers' desk. All employees entering the bank would see Barton standing there and assume that everything was all right until the instant that either Harris or I intercepted them and put them into the lounge.

At 8:35 Harris took up a position just inside the door, behind it so that he would be invisible each time it opened. At 8:41 there was the sound of a key in the lock. The uniformed bank guard whose duty it was to unlock the side door each morning entered. With him was a white-haired woman carrying an umbrella. "Good morning, Mr. Barton," she called across the lobby as the door closed behind them. "Nice to see-" Her voice deteriorated to a choked gasp as Harris stepped out with his gun leveled.

He took them to the lounge. The guard put up no opposition. I took Harris's place just inside the door. Three more people arrived at 8:44. I took them to the lounge while Harris took my place at the door. After that it was a shuttle service. We took them in groups as fast as we could make the round trip. I took time out only to send Harris to the front entrance to tape up his sign: BANK EXAMINERS HERE. OPEN AT 10:00 A.M. TODAY.

At 8:58 the rush was over. "You take it here," I told Harris. "I'll take Barton and Mace to the vault. Lock this door each time you have to leave it. Latecomers will think somebody forgot the latch. They'll rattle the door, which will give you time to get back to it. Now give me your knife."

He handed it over. I released Barton from the leg of the table and took him with me while I cut Mace free from his bonds. "No mistakes," I said as I walked them to the door of the vault. "You both have more riding on this than I do."

Mace rubbed his hands together nervously. Neither man said anything. There was a red light on above the vault door. I watched it. At eight seconds after nine by my watch the red light went out and a white light came on. I didn't need to say anything to Barton. He stepped up to the vault door with its huge combination dial. He spun the dial once right and once left with his body shielding his movements, then backed away. Mace moved in and did the same, then took hold of the door handle and tugged. The massive door slid open silently on its oiled tracks.

"Inside," I said to them. I followed them into the steel-lined room. A metal cart with seven canvas sacks on it was just inside the door. It was the cart we had seen used for unloading the armored car two weeks in a row. I dug my toe into the sacks. Three were heavy, obviously filled with coin. I pushed them off the cart onto the vault floor. The others I slit with the knife near the wax-impressed seal on the locked cord around the necks of the sacks, just enough to get my hand inside. Two sacks contained bundles of canceled checks, two contained neatly wrapped packages of greenbacks. I shoved the sacks with the cancelled checks onto the floor. "Is this vault vented?" I asked.

"Yes, it is," Barton replied. It was the only thing I'd heard him say since we left the Barton home.

"Then relax until they come and get you here."

I pushed the cart outside, swung the monstrous door closed, and spun the dial. I rolled the cart through the lobby to where Harris was still waiting just inside the side door. "One latecomer still due or else there'll be an absentee today," he reported. He eyed the cart. "That's it?"

"That's it. Skip out and drive Mace's station wagon alongside this door."

It took him only a moment. I pitched the two sacks into the station wagon. It was a critical moment if anyone walked around from the front of the bank, but nothing happened. I kicked the cart back inside, set the latch so no one could get in without a key, and slammed the door. Harris drove us out of the bank parking lot. My watch said 9:08.

I fumbled around inside a sack until I found two packages of fifty-dollar bills, each wrapped a hundred bills to the package. I showed them to Harris before taking my prepared box and wrapping paper from my jacket pocket. "Paying off a bill," I explained. He nodded, his eyes swivelling back to the roadway. It wasn't until later that I realized he thought I meant the Schemer.

I crammed the bills inside the box, wrapped it in the paper, sealed it, applied the address label and the stamps, which covered one whole side, and Scotch taped the whole thing again. I dropped the parcel in my pocket. When I looked up, we were within a block of the Mace house. "I'll get Dahl," I said. "You switch the sacks into the rental car and leave Mace's car in the driveway."

"Right," Harris said. He parked in front of the house, leaving the driveway unobstructed.

I walked up the driveway and went in the back door. I knew something was wrong the instant I entered the kitchen. The basement door stood open, and I could hear a feminine voice talking in the front of the house.

I drew my gun and crept through the dining room and living room. In the front hallway, Ellen Barton, nude, was gabbling into the telephone. "-Barton's daughter," she was saying. "They must be at the bank. Bank, do you understand? Stop telling me to speak more slowly! There were three of them."

She hadn't heard my approach. I reached her in two jumps and sapped the back of her pretty neck with the butt of the gun. A corner of my mind wondered if I would recognize this girl with clothes on. The telephone receiver clattered and banged to the floor as she fell forward in a loose-limbed sprawl over the telephone table, then slid to the carpeting, unconscious.

I sprinted toward the basement stairway. At the foot of the stairs the stockade door stood wide open. I slid to a stop in the entrance. Thelma Barton, Shirley Mace, Tommy Barton, and Margie Barton were still lined up in a row against a wall, tied wrist and ankle.

Rachel Mace was not.

The four against the wall stared bug-eyed at the naked idiot girl crouched above Dick Dahl's prostrate figure, her hands at his throat. She was crooning softly to herself. Dahl's face was blue-black. To one side a tilted camera tripod and a smashed movie camera indicated how he had been spending his time.

Rachel looked up at my entrance. She drooled at me as I charged her. She fastened a hand like a steel claw on my ankle. With fantastic strength she began to pull me down onto the mattress. I swung the gun at her head. It crashed against her temple and she crumpled. The steel claw fell away. I took a closer look at Dahl and changed my mind about trying for a pulse indication. Dick Dahl was gone.

I couldn't remember if there was anything incriminating on his film aside from what he'd been shooting here. With Dahl one never knew. I grabbed up the smashed camera, jerked out the film cartridge, jammed it into my pocket, and threw the camera down. "Don't leave us here with her!" Shirley Mace screamed at me as I started for the door. "She'll kill us all!"

I kept on going. I knew the police would be there before the idiot regained consciousness. And after the police saw what had happened, Rachel Mace would be someone else's responsibility from that day forward, not the Maces'.

The early-morning rain had renewed itself in a steady drizzle as I ran down the driveway to the rental car Harris had parked at the curb. "Dahl won't be coming," I said as I slid into the front seat. "It just became a two-way split."

Harris paled. "The police!" he guessed.

"No, but they'll be right along. Drive to my VW in front of the tourist home." Harris started up the car like a sleepwalker. I looked into the back seat. There were no sacks. "Where's the money?"

"In the trunk," Harris said. He appeared to be having difficulty in swallowing. He turned two corners and pulled in behind my car. "What do we do now?"

"Get onto the highway leading into Philadelphia. You know the route. I'll follow you. If we become separated, take a room in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel and wait for me. Leave the car in the hotel garage." I punched him on the arm. "We'll lick this thing yet."

"Yeah," he said, but his attempted smile was wan.

I opened the door of the rental car. "Stay within the speed limit," I warned him, and ran for the VW. Harris moved away as I started it up. I followed him, but not too closely. At the first traffic light I inched into the curb and dropped my package addressed to Dr. Afzul into the gaping maw of the curbside mailbox. When the light changed, I slid in behind Harris again.

One loose end bothered me. Harris was now driving Dahl's rental. His own was parked downtown near the bank. If things had gone properly, we'd have gone back for it. Now the police would find it eventually, with the risk that the rental clerk might be able to identify Harris. We couldn't venture downtown again, though.

The homes in the residential area thinned out. As we approached open country, I pulled off my red wig. I reached into the glove compartment, took out the black one, put it on one-handed, and fastened the tabs. I threw the red wig into the glove compartment. I'd take care of a makeup change during my first gas stop.

When the trees began flying by too rapidly, I looked down at the speedometer. Harris was driving too fast. I backed off my accelerator, and he drew away from me at once. It was panic scraping at his nerves. I could see the rental swaying from side to side on the rain-slick road as he forced it. In minutes he was out of sight, a curve or two ahead of me.

I felt no sense of shock when I saw fresh heavy black skidmarks in the middle of a sharp curve. I came out of the turn myself to find the rental across the road with its driver's side wedged solidly against a big tree. A puff of smoke or a cloud of dust still was poised above the crumpled hood. The car had hit so hard parts of it had exploded from the frame. Pieces of metal were still rolling in the street. As I braked the VW, a tongue of flame licked up over the back of the rental, and burning gasoline trickled down the rain-washed gutter.

I pulled off onto the shoulder and ran across the street. I could hear the ominous sound of crackling flames. The whole car was catching fire, the back end the worst. One look into the driver's side was enough to show that it made no difference to Preacher Harris whether anyone got him out or not. His neck was broken, wrenched completely around on his left shoulder. Blood was running from a corner of his mouth.

I reached in through the smoke, wincing, and snatched the car keys. The money was locked up in the trunk. I dashed to the rear of the car and tried to force the key into the burning trunk. The heat drove me away. I tried it again, but as I did I heard the words of Dr. Afzul in the hospital as though on a tape recorder: "Do not get burned again, at least not in the same areas. What I do this time, no one can do a second time."

But the money was in the trunk.

I tried it again.

The flames were roaring viciously, and they drove me away.

I gave up.

I stood there for what seemed minutes, just a few yards away, watching the bank loot burn up. Then another car pulled around the same curve and brakes screeched as the driver saw the burning wreck. I threw the rental's car keys back into the front seat and ran across the wet street to the newcomer. "Call an ambulance!" I yelled at him to get him away from the scene. He nodded and gunned his car ahead down the road.

I got into the VW, made a U-turn to reverse direction, took the first left to angle back onto the Philadelphia highway, and was at the Bellevue-Stratford in half an hour.

It hadn't really sunk in that no one was going to meet me there.